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recently departed, nothing more than an
automatic reflex. See a corpse, throw up, grumble. She wondered yet
again what it meant. Perhaps she simply hated dead people? She had
yet to get used to them. How did Christopher do it? He always
looked so imperturbable at crime scenes, not a muscle
flinching.
    An
o ld instructor of Christopher had told
Lou, Christopher’s Captain, that the Big guy had been like that
even in police school. It might explain why he was so good at what
he did. No reaction to impair his brain, and quite a brain he had.
She suspected he didn’t see corpses as people, more as problems
with a multitude of possible solutions, like a challenging
puzzle.
    She did like
the Big guy. A lot. A whole lot more than like, in fact. Crazy
about him. Which was a problem with no solutions. Impossible man.
How could I have let that happened, she cursed herself again? The
cursing was more and more one of wonder than anger. She might just
say yes to moving in with him. Maybe. That glass of wine was really
hitting her hard. Time for bed.
    When
Christopher called around ten on his way back from the crime scene,
she was already fast asleep on her couch thanks to some red wine
and didn’t hear a thing.
    The next
morning, she went to that little French café she had discovered a few months ago close to Main Street
and worked on her manuscript. She had a routine for writing days.
Get up. Drink the fresh orange juice waiting for her on the entry
table that Benjamin, the hotel’s weekday valet, brought up around
seven. Take a shower, no matter if and how many she had taken the
day before. Get dressed. Her writing dress code was casual; today
she had on sleek jeans, a loose navy blue t-shirt falling on one
shoulder, a strapless navy blue bra, navy blue panties and a pair
of sandals to complete the navy blue workday outfit.
    The routine
continued with: g rab breakfast in the
hotel’s small restaurant. She sat on the kitchen’s countertop to
watch Lewis prepare the breakfast orders for the other guests,
scrambled eggs that morning. The eggs were delicious: farm eggs scrambled with milk and a touch of cream,
some shallots, red peppers and slices of browned maple sausages,
all served with thick slices of white pain de ménage buttered all
the way to the crust. Perfect. Once she packed her laptop and
wallet, she was good to go.
    She almost
called Christopher but figured he had got home late the night
before hence she didn’t. She almost cheated and packed her mobile
phone. She was trying to quit her mobile dependency. It wasn’t that
she chatted on the phone a lot, but she did photograph (spy on
might be more accurate) the world around; the habit was becoming
way too addictive.
    Mario had
installed all kinds of applications on that thing, turning it
into a simile James Bond phone. Mario’s
phones were not of the type an average person would or should find
useful. She loved her phone, but since she aimed to be normal, she
left the phone back in her room. Besides, if Christopher called
today, he was going to ask about the motel incident for sure. If
she didn’t bring her phone, she’d miss that call.
Childish.
    As she
walked to the café , a good half-hour walk, she
observed her fellow early birds rush along on the sidewalks, in
their cars, coming in and out of apartment buildings and offices.
Lucky her, she was in no such hurry. As she did not allow herself
to ruminate on the previous afternoon, she was enjoying her morning
stroll.
    At the
coffee shop, she sat at her usual table in the front window, her
back against the wall. There again she studied people on the
street. She also had a front-row view of the coffee shop, not that
she had much to admire at this hour.
    With its
dozen small tables, barely big enough for a laptop, this was not
the kind of place where students hung out. Their
los s. The coffee was excellent and the
owner, Marcel, a true Frenchman. When she took breaks after a
couple of pages of writing or an intense